Bush, in defending revelations that his eavesdropping program monitors tens of millions of Americans, says that these “intelligence activities target strictly Al Qaeda and their known affiliates.” Millions and millions of Al Qaeda affiliates. This whole terrorism thing is sounding more and more like McCarthyism.
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Yep. That was the idea when he was running his first campaign against Al Gore. The themes and issues one heard at the time were strongly reminiscent of the cold war. Infact his implied campaign message at the time was that he would roll things back to the “good old days of the cold war.” when we had a faceless enemy that we didn’t know when or if we would ever be able to defeat, with all the defense spending that entailed. After he was appointed president, it was simply a matter of locating a faceless enemy. I think initially North Korea was considered a prime candidate, but then the terrorists stepped up to the plate and nominated themselves.
I hope I’m not alone in my disgust about how this has morphed over time. What began as an outrage over unwarranted wiretaps has evolved from a small and limited inspection of trans-continental communication to something which affects 240 million Americans.